By Evil Jenji

I started watching Orange is the New Black only in 2018 after going through a big personal loss. It was my therapy. Orange not only helped me through this extremely difficult time, but it taught me a lot about aspects of prejudice that I had never imagined. But I think the greatest quality is not just showing, but putting us in the role of these characters without judging them. Orange does this masterfully. It’s now been two years since the last season of the series was released. Many have already forgotten about the series, switched to a more current one, or perhaps they haven’t realized the importance and depth of the stories and their characters. This post is a tribute to the two-year anniversary of the seventh season and the longing that the characters of Orange is the New Black make us.

Happy Birthday OITNB!

On July 26th, 2019 I was very excited, waiting for the next season of OITNB for a long time. I had already decided what my strategy would be on the Evil Jenji profile, it would be one post per episode. I found out that the series would be made available on Netflix at 4:00 am in the place where I was. So that was it, my goal was to watch the entire season of the series in less than 24 hours. This was the first post of that July 26th, 2019.

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It was an intense day! I created Jenji that moved through an app that moved through my movements. I loved the feature, but I actually realized two things: It was a really funny feature, but the series finale wasn’t comedic at all. And then I lost a lot of followers by posting spoilers, even though I had explained countless times that my goal was this.

That day, two years ago, I made 13 posts. And each one represented exactly what I felt in each moment. Today I realize that it was a big mistake to have done it this way. Each of the 13 episodes was so unique and perfect. So unique and so unlike anything Orange had ever shown. I remember crying a lot, especially in the last 3 episodes. They had a very high emotional charge. I can cite many wonderful scenes here, but when I remember these moments, two jump out at me:

Pennsatucky’s death was one of the most impactful scenes of the entire series. She was a character who underwent a major transformation during the 7 seasons. We all hated her, but with delicacy and mastery, her trajectory changed, showing a gradual and organic growth. We have the impression that the whole story was written in 2012, to be completed 7 years later. I think this is perhaps the most striking feature in the work of Jenji Kohan and her team, nothing is free, everything is completed in a very natural way.

Here is the second scene. I don’t see a lot of people talking about it in reviews and fans, but it’s an absurd emotional intensity,

Knowing that children were judged as adults without the right to defense is simply heartbreaking. This was shown in the series long before the world press raised the subject. According to updated information, this is no longer the case in the United States, but this has been the case for many years.

I would like to mention a third scene, also with Fig, about the right to Abortion. Here you can read an article made about it. The scene where fig helps one of the inmates, giving a medicine, is of incredible significance.

The seventh season of Orange is the New Black often told stories that if not dramatized by actors, could make a documentary. Perhaps this proximity to reality was the main ingredient in the closing of the series. Here I have only shown a few examples, but there are several others. The stories told there are so strong that if the Orange spin-off were a documentary, it would make total sense.

Another striking example was discovering that many of the actresses somehow lived through the immigration drama. One of the most incredible stories was that of actress Diane Guerrero. She tells it all in this podcast with Piper Kerman.

MORE ABOUT ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

• 10 Years of OITNB – What Can We Expect From This Anniversary?
• Interview with one of the Inmates of the OITNB Opening!
• What Actress Danielle Brooks Think About Taystee On OITNB?
• I Got Addicted to Orange is the New Black in Season Five
• Orange is the New Black Season 1 Trivia. Did you Know This?

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Perhaps one of the many secrets this season has been delving into each character’s individual issues. In what was most important, trying to reach a conclusion or the beginning of a new journey. If we are going to compare the first seasons with the last ones, we notice a clear change of tone in the narrative. maybe at first we could describe OITNB as: There is something very serious about this comedy. And at the end of the seventh we realized: There is something very Ironic in this drama!

As a fan and journalist, I pray to all the gods that there is a spin-off in the middle of this journey. Not just for a Fan’s wish, but because I think it’s necessary to keep talking about these topics. Today most subjects have been widely discussed both by politicians, public opinion and in the most diverse media, but what I ask is: Is this enough? Did that settle the matter? have you found answers for everything? And the answer as you can imagine is NO. If it’s not resolved, I can safely say, we need a spin-off because we need to keep discussing the same issues, perhaps on another, even deeper level. OITNB is a tool for this understanding, so why not use it? I keep thinking that the seventh season was just the end of a chapter, so that soon, another one will start.